Missing Pet Python Found 'Frozen' Inside U-Haul Truck Recovers and Reunites with its Owner

Virginia Wildlife Management and Control/Facebook

A ball python discovered inside a U-Haul truck on March 8 has slithered back into the arms of its 14-year-old owner.

A U-Haul manager in Henrico, Va. named Megan Hamm told WWBT-TV that they found the reptile on the floor of the passenger's seats of a U-Haul box truck after unlocking the vehicle to examine the inside.

"It threw me off for a second. I knew it was non-poisonous. I could tell it was a ball python," said Hamm, who noticed something was wrong with the animal.

"[It] wasn't even really moving. I knew it was really cold," Hamm added.

Virginia Wildlife Management and Control manager Richard Perry said he got a call from Hamm about the discovery around 4:30 p.m.

Virginia Wildlife Management and Control/Facebook

"It's not uncommon for us to get, you know, 100-150 text messages with pictures of snakes each day and calls or reports about snakes and everything, but to get a call about a python in a U-Haul, that's a first," Perry told WWBT-TV, noting that the snake was in "very rough condition" when he responded to Hamm's call.

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"It was literally frozen to the touch, very cold, unresponsive. We immediately placed it in a towel, got it wrapped up to try and get it warm," he told the news station. "You'd see a little bit of movement here and there, but very little. Not enough to give us any belief that it was going to survive."

According to WWBT-TV, the snake started to improve after Perry took the reptile back to a Virginia Wildlife Management and Control facility.

"Throughout the whole night, it's going from good to bad to real good to real bad to this morning when we got up, it's was nothing but sheer, sheer excitement," Perry said. "We were jumping for joy. It was such a fantastic moment."

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U-Haul, Hamm, and Perry eventually discovered that the python was the pet of a previous U-Haul passenger: a 14-year-old boy named Dion Jones, who had lost the beloved pet during his family's move from Winchester to Norfolk, per WWBT-TV.

Jones told the station that he had the snake in an enclosure for the trip, but he suspects that the animal escaped through a rip in the lid of the enclosure during the move.

Virginia Wildlife Management and Control/Facebook

"... I guess the lid wasn't fully closed because there was already a little rip inside of it. So, the snake must've got through that while we were sleeping," Jones told the station.

"We looked inside the back of the U-Haul, and we couldn't find it nowhere," he continued. "We looked inside the engine, under the floorboards, inside the little silver thing that holds the engine, and we couldn't find it nowhere."

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The snake is more than just a pet for Jones. The teen named the animal after his late father, Nate, who died last May. Jones told the station that his pet snake is a "spiritual animal" to him. So when he got the call from Virginia Wildlife Management and Control that they had located his pet, he was ecstatic.

"My mom called me and said they found the snake," said Jones. "I was so happy."

Virginia Wildlife Management and Control posted a video of Jones's reunion with the pet on social media. In the video, Jones can be seen smiling as he holds the snake in both hands.

Perry told WWBT-TV that the entire saga was one of the most memorable animal rescues that he's been a part of.

"One gentleman asked us, out of all the stories that we've done over the years and everything, which one ranks the highest? This, by far, ranks at the top of the chart, he said."